Today, online stores, such as the iTunes™ Store provided by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., allow customers (i.e., online users) via the Internet to purchase or rent media items (such as music, videos) or software programs. Often, at online stores, numerous digital items are made available and are provided by various different providers, such as music labels, movie companies, and application developers. Software tools, such as iProducer™ and iTunes Connect™ available from Apple Inc., can assist providers with online submission of digital items to the iTunes™ Store.
Since submission involves transmission of digital files over the Internet to online stores for distribution, the submission process can be time consuming to a submitter. When the digital files are large or voluminous, the transmission of the digital files for the submission can take a substantial duration of time. The digital files pertain to digital assets. After the submission, if quality checks are satisfied, the digital assets can be available for distribution. Once available for distribution, the digital assets (e.g., media item(s)) can receive feedback from users, such as purchasers or users of the digital assets. This feedback is associated with a particular digital asset to which it was directed. With numerous users providing feedback data, reliable feedback data can be acquired and used to determine and present popularity data, charts, reviews, etc. The feedback data can be accumulated over time and also older feedback data can be decayed over time, so that the feedback data remains not only reliable but current.
When a digital asset that was previously submitted and distributed is removed from distribution due to errors, upgrades or corrections, the digital asset becomes no longer available. Often, in such cases, a replacement digital asset is submitted for distribution in place of the previously submitted and now removed digital asset. Indeed, the replacement digital asset is often considered in the content provider's eyes as an upgraded version of the previous digital asset. Unfortunately, however, the removal of the previous digital asset causes its feedback data to be removed. As a result, the feedback data for the previous data is lost. Consequently, there is a need for improved approaches to manage feedback data for digital assets that are submitted but then removed and resubmitted in an altered manner.